Rainier actually has three pronunciations. When you referred to capitalization I assumed you meant Mt. Rainier, pronounced “ray-NEER,” since a large volcanic mountain is more consequential accidentally than some tinpot Europeoan playboy/prince ever will be on purpose :p.
Feynn, like I said, as far as Patrick Roy goes, he has told Denver to say “Wah”. Maybe it’s different elsewhere or for other people. But watch a home Av’s game and you’ll hear the announcers say “Wah”. As far as I know, they say it the way the guy whose name it is wants it pronounced.
That’s probably because it’s the easiest way to say it in english. The French “R” can be tricky to pronounce so it’s just easier to tell the media to call him “Wah”. Roy should be pronounced the same as the french word Roi (king).
Bucket, when capitalized, sounds like “bouquet.”
heh.
-fh
Okay, but are there words other than polish/Polish that change pronunciation where both words are English and neither is a true proper name?
'Cause IMO true proper names can be pronounced however the person having the name decides. And different words commonly have different pronuciations in different languages, which fails to astonish: it may be “Gee” LaFleur but it’s not not “Gee” Fawkes.
So are there other words with different pronunciations, where the difference can’t be easily accounted for as a matter of personal taste or a difference in languages?
Just curious; I can’t think of any.
Arise, zombie, arise!
(This is when nobody from this thread comes over and I look like a fool.)
OK, I’ll save you Darren.
It occured to me that there’s two definitions of “capitonym” out there, so let’s make the word be self-defining.
capitonym a word which changes meaning but not pronunciation when capitalized
Capitonym a word which changes meaning and pronunciation when capitalized.
So the question is, is “capitonym” a capitonym or a Capitonym?
Patrick Roy is pronounces like Patrick Waugh, but spelled with no letters in common.
No, the French “R” is more guttural than the English “W”. And the vowel sounds are “ah” vs. “aw”.
Monday was rainy, but Tuesday was even ranier. 
Well, in the interests of completeness, we did spot August/august in the other, contemporary thread. So, so far, we only have those two word pairs that fit.
Nope, Patrick Roy pronounces it in french as /ʁwa/ or rrrrw-ah. The ‘r’ is rolled into the ‘w’ sound.
We used to tease a friend that was a huge Canadiens fan about Guy Carbano!
Yeah; we don’t have the French “r” in English, and " /ʁwa/ " sounds closest to “wah” English phoneme-wise. See also names like “Nguyen.” These approximations are pretty normal. What I don’t quite get is how voilà becomes “wahlah,” when “vwahlah” shouldn’t pose any pronunciation challenges to an English speaker. No, it’s not a common consonant cluster, but it doesn’t strike me as something that would require practice from an English speaker (the word “driveway,” for example, contains that cluster, although split syllabically.)
It seems to me you could make a case that Polish and polish are in fact two different words that just happen to be spelled the same. Also bass (fish) and bass (instrument) or minute (unit of time) and minute (very small)
Well, they are. See: homographs.
If a snake should slough its skin off, it’s pronounced “sluff”.
But if you go to Slough in England, it rhymes with “cow”.
Similarly for ‘mow’.
If you’re cutting the grass - it rhymes with’low’.
But if you’re in a barn, in Mow Cop or at The Barley Mow, - it rhymes with ‘wow’
And the wet boggy ground version is pronounced “slew,” at least in California. Elkhorn is my favourite.